Cytopia 2026

Digital sovereignty: the case of cytopia.fr

Hugues Wattez

Tuesday 12 May 2026

Introduction

Cytopia is an experimental and original conference:

  • in substance: a unique intercultural and inter-academic dimension
  • in form: knowledge and its medium are made more accessible through different technologies

This presentation focuses on these technologies:

  • the open-source world
  • the semantic web
  • the decentralized web

Définition open-source

The source code is accessible to everyone

Avantages :

  • ability to verify that no hidden action is taking place
    • e.g. no telemetry
  • a global community for product improvement
  • Avoids vendor lock-in:
    • open standards, interoperability, self-hosting, …

Cytopia :

  • the digital tool will be released as open source by July/August 2026 ----->

Current uses:

llms-txt

Definition of the semantic web

Transform the web from documents into a globally database

Avantages :

  • Machines understand the meaning of data (semantics)
  • Linked, interoperable data across heterogeneous sources

Cytopia :

  • From a simple semantic web to a graph-based semantic web


llms-txt

Definition of the decentralized web

Architecture:

Centralized web

graph LR
  Client1[Client 1] --> Server((Server central))
  Client2[Client 2] --> Server
  Client3[Client 3] --> Server

Decentralized web

graph LR
  Client1 --> NodeA(Server A)
  Client2 --> NodeB(Server B)
  Client3 --> NodeB
  NodeA e1@--- NodeB

  e1@{ animation: slow }

Distributed web

graph LR
  A[Client 1] e1@--- B[Client 2]
  B e2@--- C[Client 3]
  C e3@--- D[Client 4]
  D e4@--- A
  A e5@--- C
  B e6@--- D

  e1@{ animation: slow }
  e2@{ animation: slow }
  e3@{ animation: slow }
  e4@{ animation: slow }
  e5@{ animation: slow }
  e6@{ animation: slow }

Benefits:

  • Decentralized –> resilience (no single point of failure)
  • Distributed –> data sovereignty and user ownership
  • Semantic web + decentralized/distributed web ~~> Web3

From a discussion to an article

Goals:

  • Assistance with transcription of discussions
  • Automatic clustering and structuring of content
  • Enrichment of content with external sources

Progression:

  • ☑ Use of external tools (NotebookLM, Consensus, …)
  • ⏳ Gradual replacement with their open-source equivalents
  • ⏳ Decentralized execution: the user downloads their own local open-source LLM
  • ◻ Available from the Cytopia interface

Respect for privacy and user data sovereignty

From an article to a discussion

llms-txt

Goals:

  • Cytopia content is structured according to semantic web principles
  • The user can query all Cytopia publications and the book with a local LLM
  • The LLM enriches its responses with Cytopia’s contextual knowledge

Progression:

  • ☑ From the first article, use of llms-txt
  • ⏳ Implementation of web-llm
  • ⏳ Full traceability: cited and verifiable sources
  • ◻ Physical Cytopia book queryable by llm

Conclusion

User sovereignty is a technically buildable reality

  • Open source guarantees transparency and mobilizes the community
  • Decentralized web frees data from central servers
  • Semantic web facilitates the user experience

Cytopia is a practical demonstration of this:

  • A platform being built progressively on these three pillars
  • A reproducible model for other academic and civic initiatives
  • An invitation to rethink our technological infrastructures

Thank you


  • Tangi, on the open-source world1
  • Karaneh, on network modeling
  • Nicolas, about the cybersecurity behind these networks

An article is on the way!


Thanks to the audience, and for your questions 🤗